Leap of Faith
A forty-something mid-life crisis tightened its long fingers around my neck, slowly suffocating me. I had practiced law for 18 years in big firms, small firms, on my own, changing the configuration every few years. My life had the outer hallmarks of success. I liked my clients personally, and they gave me good work and paid their bills promptly. I was my own boss in a reasonably secure position. I cherished my beautiful new home designed to my specifications. My teenage son, Brandon, was smart, handsome and happy. I had a relationship with Jim, a loving and considerate partner who would talk through conflicts with me.
Yet, discontent haunted me and sucked the energy out of me. Sometimes I felt guilty for not appreciating my good fortune. Often I felt crazy, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do instead. What was I even qualified for? Would I have to go back to school again? I had tried to find a new career for years. I was afraid to let go of what I had in order to start something new. What if I couldn’t make a good living at it? Or worse, what if my new career also turned into “Just a Job”.
I eagerly read self-help books. Although titles like “I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was” struck a bulls-eye, the advice didn’t stick with me. Well, ok, maybe I didn’t do the exercises whole-heartedly. Some of them I didn’t do at all. I just continued trudging to work, forcing myself to read boring documents and draft agreements I wasn’t interested in. Only my concern for my clients and the need to pay the bills kept me going.
Then Mary Manin Morrissey came to town to promote her new book, “Building Your Field of Dreams”. Her words, both spoken and written, reverberated inside my cranium. I still didn’t know what my dream was, but Morrissey’s counsel; “Go to the edge of the light you see,” bubbled up from time to time like the answer in one of those old eight-ball fortune telling toys from the 50’s.
After a relatively stress-free day of practicing law, I nevertheless returned home depressed. I moaned to Jim, “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” Jim asked me the powerful question, “If money were not an issue and you weren’t trying to determine a career, what would you do for the next year?”
I blurted out, “I’d move to Paris!” Stunned, I asked myself where did THAT come from. It WAS an appealing image, and I HAD desired to spend time in France since my teen years. It occurred to me that I had a sad fondness for the idea, almost a buried longing. I recognized the dream I had shoved back into the dark corners of my sock drawer at least 20 years ago. Through the power of a single question, my life turned from drudgery to adventure.
Initially I dismissed that idea as outrageous and impossible, but once released from Pandora’s Box, the dream would not endure being stuffed away again. The idea haunted me for three days, popping into consciousness in unguarded moments. Finally I stopped saying “Impossible,” and began asking “Why not?”
Many “Why Not’s” shouted back at me. I had a big mortgage on my treasured custom-built dream home that I had completed only two years before. As a divorced mother, I shared joint custody of my then 13-year-old son, and his father would not want him wrenched away and spirited off to a foreign country. I had a law practice stocked with clients I liked and cared about, and structured so as to give me personal autonomy, yet the support of lawyers with other areas of expertise. Moving across the Atlantic for a year would deal a deathblow to the business I had struggled to build up. I had a cat and two big dogs, one of whom was renowned in his youth for his Marmaduke-like misdeeds, but who now was aging and sometimes incontinent. Although I had studied French in high school and college, I had rarely encountered the occasion to speak French in Texas over the past 20 years. My efforts at French while in France in the past year had produced comic, and sometimes very inconvenient results. I didn’t speak French well enough to properly reserve a hotel room, much less negotiate a place to live for a year. I had no prospects for employment in France, a country with a 13% unemployment rate, except for in the one area I wanted to avoid — practicing law. The exchange rate between francs and dollars disfavored Americans, in a country where the cost of goods and housing already soared. The list went on and on and on.
In the following days I had two thoughts bubbling up at odd times: (1) “Live in Paris for a year,” and (2) “Go to the edge of the light you see.” For the first time I didn’t dismiss the idea. I asked myself, “What is really stopping me?” I felt a strange exhilaration. Morrissey’s writings had encouraged me to dream bigger than myself. I began to examine my situation with the idea that maybe it WAS possible, at least with a little help from a higher power. Why say no without really exploring it? What did I have to lose? A career I couldn’t tolerate anymore? I went to the edge of the light I could see.
Post Date: January 1, 2002
Decision & Faith
How Vision, Decision, and Faith Orchestrated Events for “Leap of Faith“.
I enrolled in a French class. I examined my financial situation and determined that, if I leased my house for enough to cover the costs on it, I could manage for a year or so without working. I could just relax in France and see what answers would bubble up in that old eight-ball. I consulted Jim and Brandon. Brandon, who was just graduating middle school, salivated at the idea of living in France for a year. Jim was a at career crossroads himself, and declared his willingness to follow my lead. Now to my ex. After a few discussions, Bob generously put aside his desire to be with his son in order to give Brandon a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Nearly miraculous solutions materialized to solve the lingering problems. I leased my treasured house to people I knew and trusted. They just showed up at the door with a real estate agent, not previously knowing it was my house. Bob acquiesced to take possession of our elderly dog and the other dog made friends with strangers who wanted to keep her. Using the Internet, we finally found a suitable temporary apartment in Paris. As each hurdle fell away I felt reassured, and I faintly recognized the work of some other hand in this process.
Soon only my fear stood in the way. Fear of the unknown. Fears of unemployment, of not having a 99-year plan, of not knowing where this adventure would lead me. Fears about whether it would be a mistake, whether I was being crazy and irresponsible, whether I could manage without an income in a foreign world. I had done all the analysis and preparation I could. I went to the edge of the light I could see.
I came to understand the profundity of the clichà “Leap of Faith.” I stood at the edge of a cliff, trying to decide whether to step off, whether to trust that a net would appear (as I once heard faith defined). I projected far into the future, and realized that whatever happened, at age 90 I was unlikely to look back and say, “I wish I hadn’t gone to France for a year.” By contrast, I already had regrets for opportunities I had failed to pursue in my younger years.
I closed my eyes and jumped.
Post Date: June 1, 2001